Kuwait City, Kuwait – After three dynamic years of operating as a digital and nomadic gallery, Hunna Art proudly announces the opening of its first permanent space within one of Kuwait’s most exciting cultural spaces, the Design District. This significant milestone reaffirms the gallery’s commitment to championing the voices of contemporary women artists from the Arabian Peninsula and its diasporas, while fostering dialogues that challenge and expand contemporary art practices. The gallery’s inaugural exhibition will take place on October 23rd, 2024, with a solo show by Bahraini multimedia artist Mashael Alsaie.
With this new space, Hunna Art is poised to evolve as a critical platform for research-driven and experimental practices, presenting solo exhibitions that spotlight new bodies of work from represented artists. The gallery will serve as a hub for discourse on contemporary art, regularly hosting curators from around the globe to engage with the complex narratives emerging from the region.
“We are not simply opening a gallery; we are aiming to forge and cultivate a space for critical engagement and artistic experimentation, where artists can challenge and redefine contemporary discourses,” said Océane Sailly, Founder and Director of Hunna Art. “This new
space will embody our commitment to amplifying voices that challenge normative frameworks.
Using hybrid methodologies and through a diverse range of mediums, our artists explore the fluidity of origins, belonging, identity, and the complexities of gendered constructs, grounding their work in rigorous research, personal experiences, and collective memories. This platform
will further our dedication to fostering innovative artistic practices that resonate within global cultural dialogues.”
In her debut solo exhibition in Kuwait, ‘Gentle Porosities,’ Mashael Alsaie (b.1994) interrogates the enduring association between the female body and the landscape, positioning her work within ecofeminist critiques of the systematic exploitation of both. Alsaie’s practice engages critically with the intertwined histories of patriarchal dominance and ecological degradation, reframing the landscape as a space of both vulnerability and resistance. Through the invocation of matrilineal narratives, she subverts conventional power structures and
explores the potential for ecological and cultural reclamation.
The exhibition brings together photography, sculpture, and sound to explore how natural landscapes are transformed under the pressures of technology and capitalism. Silkscreened photographs overlaid with metallic oil painting, archival material distorted in metal, and tear-shaped glass sculptures converge into a mythopoetic investigation of the liminal spaces between the organic and the artificial. Alsaie disrupts photography’s conventional role as a documentary medium, reimagining it as a vessel for mythic resonance. By doing so, she
challenges modernity’s disenchanted view of the world, positioning myth as a vital tool for ecological and cultural renewal.
Alsaie’s work engages deeply with the alienation of both nature and the human spirit in an age of industrialization and technological hegemony. Her practice mourns the loss of empathy for the
land, and through this exhibition, she issues a muster call to revive a mythological consciousness that could renew our fractured relationship with the Earth.
Exhibition Details
Artist: Mashael Alsaie
Title: ‘Gentle Porosities’
Artist: Mashael Alsaie
Opening Date: October 23rd, 2024
Location: Hunna Art Gallery, First floor, Space 4, Design District, Shuwaikh Industrial, Area 2,
Block 1, Street 28, Kuwait
For more information on Hunna Art’s new space, upcoming exhibitions, or press inquiries, please contact Océane Sailly, Founder and Director, at contact@hunna.art.
About Hunna Art
Hunna Art is an independent contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by Océane Sailly.
Dedicated to amplifying the voices of a new generation of women artists from or connected to the Arabian Peninsula, the gallery fosters critical engagement and artistic experimentation.
In just three years, Hunna Art has established itself as a pioneering platform, through a strong and innovative exhibition program between the Arabian Peninsula and Europe, a strong emphasize on collaborations, the development of a residency network and a growing presence at international art fairs such as Abu Dhabi Art, Art Dubai, Art Paris, and Menart. The opening of its first permanent space will anchor Hunna Art in the region’s landscape while furthering the gallery’s commitment to fostering dialogue around contemporary art practices.
The gallery and its artists have garnered attention from prestigious publications such as AD Middle East, Art Critique, Artnet, Beaux Arts Magazine, Canvas Magazine, Diptyk, Fisheye Magazine, L'Orient Le Jour, Le Quotidien de l’Art, Middle East Eye, Selection Arts, The Art
Newspaper, The Steidz, and Vogue Arabia. Their works are included in prominent private and institutional collections across the Arab world and beyond.
